The Business of Art

Part 2: Should you sell your art on Etsy?

In my dream world, my studio is located next to my Aikido Dojo. The walls are filled with shikishi boards and hanging scrolls up for sale. Students sit around a big rectangle table as they practice their calligraphies of the week. Adjacent to the table is a rug covered with felt to brush Zen style calligraphies on the floor. Customers come in and out to visit the studio and purchase art. Classes run three times a week on evenings and weekend mornings. Life is good.

Unfortunately, most artists don’t have the capital to open a brick and mortar studio/gallery right from the start. However, with very little money we can open a virtual studio; one that reaches far more customers than a brick and mortar store ever can. Just because it is readily available for everyone, it doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. There is no template on how to do this. There is not one right way to go about it. I can’t tell you how to sell your art the right way; I can only tell you how I did it.

Before you can sell your art, there has to be someone willing to buy it. I discussed this in more detail on part one of The Business of Art. You can load up a website or open a brick and mortar store, but if no one knows you or know you’re there, you won’t hear anything but crickets. Now, if you have people interested in your art and are willing to buy it, then I’d like to discuss one of the most common options available: ETSY

Etsy is the most popular platform for artists and handmade crafters to sell their work. Think of it as an online art mall. There are some advantages but many disadvantages of selling on Etsy.

Advantages

Convenience and easy setup– Etsy’s platform provides everything you need to run a store. It includes secure payment processing, shipping settings, and a pretty good storefront for a relatively small fee. Etsy charges a $0.20 listing fee. You will pay 20 cents for every listing you post. For example, I used to have about 20 calligraphies listed for sale, so I paid a $3 fee, (listings last for four months or until they sell.) 3.5% transaction fee plus 3%+$0.25 payment processing fee. At first, this may sound like a lot, but it isn’t considering they are taking care of everything. Shipping is also very convenient. Etsy lets you purchase labels at discounts from USPS, UPS and Canada Post. You can print your labels right from your account and simply schedule a pickup or drop your package at the post office.

Disadvantages

Competition –  Having all these features is undoubtedly Etsy’s most significant benefit, however, merely opening an Etsy Shop doesn’t mean you will have instant sales pouring in. The challenge with Etsy is that potential customers are just browsing the site looking for stuff in general and they may not necessarily be looking for your stuff in particular. As I said before, think of Etsy as an online mall; customers walk around window shopping. You are the retail worker standing outside your store trying to entice customers to walk in. You need to have another venue to promote yourself and let people know of your Etsy store. Etsy works like Google in the sense that it’s all search base. Customers search for an item and Etsy provides with several suggested results. You may or may not be one of those results based on how your store is scoring regarding visibility and popularity. Naturally bigger stores with lots of sales will be favored over smaller ones because Etsy makes money with every purchase. The site offers a way to do paid promotion similar to Facebook ads, but they are a lot of work and carries additional costs that may cut down the already small profit you are making from your art. The site is a vast marketplace and competition among artists selling similar art is only getting bigger. According to Etsy’s website, the site has over 25 million users! A simple search with the words “Japanese calligraphy” provides a whopping 105 pages result. The competition is already saturated with many stores selling similar items, and to make matters worse; the first page results featured many products at the lowest price points. This price competition marginalizes artists and devalues the uniqueness of Japanese Calligraphy. There is a vintage Japanese Calligraphy Zen scroll selling for $18!!!

Depersonalization –  The most significant drawback I find with Etsy as an artist is that the customer is buying from Etsy, not from you. Even though they are getting your artwork, you control neither the look and feel of your store nor the buying experience. Have you ever ask someone: “hey where did you get that?” and they answer, “oh I bought it on Etsy.” This to me is a real disadvantage because your customers need to be your best promoters, but if they are promoting Etsy instead of you, that’s going to make it harder to spread the word about your store. If you’re trying to build a brand around you and your art, selling on Etsy will not help you grow your brand. The site’s security and privacy policies do not allow you to communicate with past buyers outside of the site. You don’t have access to their emails and they do not join your email list. While this may benefit customers, as a seller it’s a lost opportunity. The people that are most likely to buy from you are the ones who have already bought something from you. You want your customers to know you and stay in touch, but once the purchase happened, you’re out of their radar.

I used Etsy a lot and sold various calligraphies there. I am grateful for every single sale. Some of you reading this might have actually been an Etsy customer of mine (I like to think, but there is no way to know). However, since last year I’ve decided to migrate out of Etsy entirely and created my own store. Building your own store is way more complicated than setting up a shop on Etsy, but I believe the benefits outnumber the shortcomings.

It may sound counter-intuitive after what I said above, but if you want to start selling your art for the first time, I do recommend giving Etsy a try. It may not generate a lot of sales if any, but it will teach you a lot about listings, pricing, promotion, shipping, and taxes. You will need to know all these things extremely well for when you venture on your own. The most important thing to focus is on creating your art, let Etsy take care of the rest.